Much ado about ‘hooah,’ ‘ooh-rah’ and ‘airpower’

It may sound like so much “hooah” to
some, but a lot of folks in uniform take their guttural war cries quite
seriously.

So ground-pounders all over the planet are up in arms about an Air Force
suggestion that airmen should be shouting “airpower!” in place of the more
earthy “hooah!”

The phonetically spelled battle cry “hooah” — or its Marine Corps equivalent,
“ooh-rah” — often is barked when troops want to voice approval or a sense of
esprit de corps. Its full meaning is primal and difficult to define, for it also
echoes the hardships faced by those in uniform.

Soldiers tend to prefer “hooah.” Marines say there is a separate and distinct
“ooh-rah.” Not only that, they claim theirs was first. While the Army can trace
“hooah” back only to the Second Seminole War of 1835-42, Marines cite
Revolutionary War battle cries and even Russian and Turkish precedents for
“ooh-rah,” which holds tremendous meaning and significance for most
leathernecks.

Just listen to Gunnery Sgt. Glenn Holloway, a combat correspondent
based at the Navy Annex in Arlington, Va.:

“Ooh-rah comes from the places in our hearts that only Marines understand. It
is conceived in sweat, nurtured with drill. It is raw determination and
gut-wrenching courage in the face of adversity. It is a concern for fellow
Marines embodied by selfless acts of heroism. It cannot be administrated. It is
not planned and put into action. It cannot be manufactured. Ooh-rah must be
purchased. Ooh-rah is Marine.”

The Navy, generally satisfied with its own time-proven “aye, aye, sir!” —
which reaches back to Elizabethan times — remains on the sidelines of this
debate.

Air Force Col. Jay DeFrank, director of Pentagon press operations, said he’s
unaware of a top-level push to promote “airpower” over “hooah” in the Air Force.
But he said he has heard a lot of “airpowers!” bandied about lately, usually in
conjunction with Air Force gun-camera footage taken over Afghanistan and
northern Iraq.

In November, the idea of adopting “airpower” as the service’s battle cry was
presented to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper by a group of security
forces airmen, according to Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Tyrone “Woody”
Woodyard.

Jumper “clearly is an advocate of air power,” but he has no preference when
it comes to his airmen shouting “airpower” or “hooah,” Woodyard said. “General
Jumper supports anything that unifies, inspires and motivates a unit to complete
its mission.”

E-mails bouncing between the Air Force and Army special-operations
communities shed light on the unfolding debate.

A message out of an Air Force special-operations command in the Persian Gulf
region in September lays it out: “By now, most of you have heard that the term
‘hooah!’ is not encouraged in our Air Force. If you are looking for something to
say in those times of great excitement and agreement when ‘hooah!’ seemed to fit
right in, try a good solid ‘airpower!’ Airpower will always be uniquely Air
Force.”

This led to predictable Bronx cheers from the rank and file. “Why would a
simple word that means so much to so many take up the time of people who have so
much more to worry about?” asked one seasoned Air Force member who signed his
message: “HOOAH!!”

Army Pvt. Ramon Gomez said he approves of the Air Force’s “airpower” slogan,
saying it sets the service apart.

But Army Sgt. Todd Wilson has a different opinion.

“That’s weak,” said Wilson, a senior instructor at the basic noncommissioned
officers course at Fort Benning, Ga., who likened the phrase “airpower” to
something that might come from the Powerpuff Girls, heroines of a popular TV
cartoon.

These days at Fort Benning, spiritual home of the Army’s infantry, enlisted
soldiers, officers and even civilians “hooah” one another at meetings, in the
hallway or during training.

“I even heard a Marine say hooah,” Wilson said.

Marines, however, would beg to differ. Their “ooh-rah,” they claim, is
uniquely their own and exists as a separate and distinct word.

Its origin is uncertain. Some like to say the term originates from a Turkish
or Russian battle cry that was adopted by Marines. Others claim it was adapted
from the “hip, hip, hooray” cry favored by the British during the American
Revolution.

But the most commonly held — and most likely — theory is that the term
originated in the Corps’ elite Force Reconnaissance community in the 1960s.

Retired Col. John W. Ripley, director of the Marine Corps History and Museums
Division, was among the Marines of 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company in the days
when the modern “ooh-rah” was born.

Force Recon Marines often trained aboard submarines in those days, and they
“became very, very good friends with submariners,” Ripley said. “They were very
good to us.”

Soon enough, Ripley said, the Marines were imitating the noise the sub’s
klaxon made while diving: “AAARRRRUUUGGAH!”

“The ‘arrugah’ sound became a chant for recon Marines when they were
running,” Ripley explained. “Eventually, it was a response in addition to a
chant.”

“Arrugah” became a shout of greeting, acknowledgment or otherwise positive
response among Force Recon Marines and expanded to the rest of the Corps in the
Vietnam War — but by that time it had become “ooh-rah.”

While the word still is sacred to Marines by and large, some more cynical
leathernecks say it doesn’t hold the same allure it once did.

“Some people say it very sincerely, but some people, like me, say it with a
bit of sarcasm,” said Staff Sgt. Robert Miller, with II Marine Liaison
Element at Camp Lejeune, N.C. “When people say it to me like, ‘Ooh-rah,
devil dog,’ I kind of look at them and say, ‘What’s wrong with this guy?’”